I often use Counter-Strike as the game to which I compare all other first-person shooters, mostly due to its old-school minimalist style. The game originated as a mod of Half-Life, took off unexpectedly, and remains an oldie-but-goodie for PC gamers.

We begin our list of weekly featured battles in our ongoing Quest To Crown the Greatest Video Game of All Time with this matchup between two of the biggest-selling games of the last five years. Grand Theft Auto IV came out in 2008 to rapturous praise, and while the Citizen Kane comparisons were maybe a bit much (and a bit off-base), the game was still an artistic success, whether measured by its storyline or its open-world re-creation of a living, breathing digital New York City.

It all began, as most of our ideas do, with a silly argument at the Phoenix office. I don’t remember who started it, or even what got us going — but I do know that we found ourselves debating the relative merits of the educational PC games we all played when we were in elementary school in the 1980s.

The first interaction I had at GameLoop 2010 – the all-male check-in desk shouting out attendee’s requested shirt sizes – was a reminder that I am an exception. Every shirt was just a size, except for the handful of women's shirts.

We here at Laser Orgy consider ourselves experts on the behavior of
nerds on the internet, not least because we ourselves are nerds on the
internet. So when we saw the collective shackles raised in response to Peter Keough's review of the "dork-pandering" filmScott Pilgrim vs. the World, we felt compelled to respond.

Recently, Atomic Games DICE and EA announced that in the forthcoming installment of their successful Medal of Honor series, players will be able to play as the Taliban in multiplayer matches. Yes, that Taliban.

On
the one hand, for obvious reasons, it's a design decision that might
make some people uncomfortable.

Curt Schilling - the media personality who, if I understand correctly, once pitched for the Boston Red Sox - has moved his fledgling gaming company, 38 Studios, to Rhode Island. Spurring Schilling on: $75 million in loans from the Rhode Island Economic Development Corp. (this isn't taxpayer money, for the record).

Yesterday, the Border House wrote The Evolution of Anya Stroud, a piece about Anya's development in the Gears franchise. They've linked to my coverage of Gears before, and they were one of the blogs that actively agreed with my claims of gender unfairness. Border House and I certainly don't run at cross purposes when it comes to wanting more inclusiveness in games.

E3 2010 is almost over, and it's been a fun ride, especially the Nintendo-related news (see our excitement about Goldeneye and more here). New Zelda, new co-op Kirby, new Kid Icarus -- yes, Nintendo appears to have "won" this year's round of corporate posturing. In spite of Miyamoto making an awkward comment about how women are like cats.

But there's one kind of game that just ... well ... doesn't excite us. Not even during the emotional high that is E3.

The cutscene above, featuring FF13's female protagonist Lightning, occurs pretty early on in the game (maybe a couple hours in, depending on your playstyle). The scene establishes a few crucial aspects of Lightning's character: she's strong, she's tough, and she's completely fed up with Snow, the fiance of her maybe-dead sister Serah.

This is tough to resist: "Super Mario Crossover" enables you to play Super Mario Bros. using the heroes from other NES classics, including Mega Man, Samus from Metroid, Simon from Castlevania, Bill from Contra, and Link from Zelda (or, boringly, you can also use Mario). This is not just a mere cosmetic swap: the characters also retain most of their abilities.